Matchmaking has a long history in many cultures, especially in South Asia, where parents traditionally handled all of the matchmaking duties for their children. Parents actively searched for an advantageous match for their child, then negotiated with other parents in an effort to secure a marriage agreement. The children, both boys and girls, typically had little or no say in the matter.

While this kind of parental marriage arrangement is far less common than it was even twenty years ago, there is still a strong cultural sentiment that parents want and need to be actively involved in finding their child a mate. Seeking to fill this void online, Shaadi.com has become the “go to” matrimonial matchmaking website for parents and singles from countries where this kind of traditional matchmaking is still considered the best approach.

Shaadi.com International, and Shaadi.co.in the dedicated website for those living in India, give parents and their children the opportunity to post profiles online and then use their matchmaking tools to find potential mates. Many parents actually take on primary responsibility for creating a profile, posting it, and responding to inquiries, much like it used to be before the internet. Their children, though, are often taking a more active role as well, helping their parents to create a profile they feel comfortable and confident using.

So what’s the future look like for matrimonial matchmaking websites? It’s very bright indeed, if the experience of Shaadi.com is any indication. This approach is the fastest growing segment of the online dating world and shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon.

News & Views Asian, Hindu, Indian, Matchmaking, Matrimonials, Muslim, Shaadi

There’s a new player in the arena of matchmaking and connecting singles using Facebook. Littlehint is a startup company that claims to have a new and better way of collecting your Facebook friends, sorting them according to which ones might be best matched for dating, and then making it easy for those folks to connect with each other.

If it sounds a bit like Thread.com you’re right because the basic idea is the same. What’s different, though, is the Littlehint is setting itself up with more detailed questions to answer as part of your profile and is also working feverishly to allow users to submit their DNA profiles as well. DNA matching for singles is the hottest, newest, and most unproven method of matchmaking in the business right now so it’s not clear if this is really a selling point for Littlehint or not.

The way Littlehint describes its process is that they ask a series of questions to determine your sociological characteristics, assess your personality and psychological tendencies, and then use a function called “degrees of separation” to connect you with friends via your Facebook page. The catch? Your friends need to fill out a Littlehint profile, too, for the whole thing to work.

Is this the wave of the dating future? Who knows. But one thing is for certain, we’re going to be seeing more of these types of online dating tools so you need to stay as up to date as possible if you want to make the most of online dating opportunities.

News & Views Dating Applications, Facebook, Matchmaking, Personality Testing

We all have seen the commercials and heard the hype about how some dating sites use “scientific” methods to match people based on personal characteristics, compatibility, and the like. But does this really work? Is there any evidence to show that there truly is a science to matchmaking? The answer is, it depends.

Let’s start with what it means to take a scientific approach to matching singles with each other. For paid online dating sites like eHarmony.com and Match.com, this means taking known research about the things that tend to cause marriages to fail (smoking, age differences, lack of common interests, etc.) and using this information to match people together. The theory is if they can minimize the problem areas that often lead to divorce in the first place, they can match singles more successfully and get better results.

The problem has been in actually verifying this as a successful matchmaking method. EHarmony.com and Match.com recently published their “success rates”, but these are put out there in terms such as the number of emails exchanged per year, the number of “winks” sent out each year, and the number of dates their users go on each year. This is interesting information (mostly for advertisers) but doesn’t necessarily help determine if their matching methods succeed where it really counts – helping you find someone special to share your life.

Do I think dating sites that use this approach are necessarily bad? No, of course not. There are plenty of singles who have found partners using this kind of approach. All I’m saying is it’s a good idea to have an objective view of what they’re offering and promising if you’re going to choose to use their services.

Relationships eHarmony, Match.com, Matchmaking, Science, Success